As a young girl in Kenya, Wangari was taught to respect nature. She grew up loving the land, plants, and animals that surrounded her--from the giant mugumo trees her people, the Kikuyu, revered to the tiny tadpoles that swam in the river. Although most Kenyan girls were not educated, Wangari, curious and hardworking, was allowed to go to school. There, her mind sprouted like a seed. She excelled at science and went on to study in the United States. After returning home, Wangari blazed a trail across Kenya, using her knowledge and compassion to promote the rights of her countrywomen and to help save the land, one tree at a time.
In this Caldecott Medal–winning picture book, the true story of Wilson Bentley and his singular fascination with snowflakes is rendered in rich prose and gorgeous artwork, perfect for the holidays, snow days, and everyday. Wilson Bentley was always fascinated by snow. In childhood and adulthood, he saw each tiny crystal of a snowflake as a little miracle and wanted to understand them. His parents supported his curiosity and saved until they could give him his own camera and microscope. At the time, his enthusiasm was misunderstood. But with patience and determination, Wilson catalogued hundreds of snowflake photographs, gave slideshows of his findings and, when he was 66, published a book of his photos. His work became the basis for all we know about beautiful, unique snowflakes today. This biographical tribute to a very special farmer is the perfect holiday gift or snow day read.
As a field, education has largely failed to learn from experience. Time after time, promising education reforms fall short of their goals and are abandoned as other promising ideas take their place. In Learning to Improve, the authors argue for a new approach. Rather than “implementing fast and learning slow,” they believe educators should adopt a more rigorous approach to improvement that allows the field to “learn fast to implement well.” Using ideas borrowed from improvement science, the authors show how a process of disciplined inquiry can be combined with the use of networks to identify, adapt, and successfully scale up promising interventions in education. Organized around six core principles, the book shows how “networked improvement communities” can bring together researchers and practitioners to accelerate learning in key areas of education. Examples include efforts to address the high rates of failure among students in community college remedial math courses and strategies for improving feedback to novice teachers. Learning to Improve offers a new paradigm for research and development in education that promises to be a powerful driver of improvement for the nation’s schools and colleges.
Dual language education is a program that combines language minority and language majority students for instruction through two languages. This book provides the conceptual background for the program and discusses major implementation issues. Research findings summarize language proficiency and achievement outcomes from 8000 students at 20 schools, along with teacher and parent attitudes.
High-stakes standardized testing has a long history of exclusion, oppression, power, and control with deep roots in the landscape of American education. In this text, the events and circumstances that have forged the way of high-stakes testing are presented in a straightforward and accessible manner.
An inside look at America's most controversial charter schools, and the moral and political questions around public education and school choice. The promise of public education is excellence for all. But that promise has seldom been kept for low-income children of color in America. In How the Other Half Learns, teacher and education journalist Robert Pondiscio focuses on Success Academy, the network of controversial charter schools in New York City founded by Eva Moskowitz, who has created something unprecedented in American education: a way for large numbers of engaged and ambitious low-income families of color to get an education for their children that equals and even exceeds what wealthy families take for granted. Her results are astonishing, her methods unorthodox. Decades of well-intended efforts to improve our schools and close the "achievement gap" have set equity and excellence at war with each other: If you are wealthy, with the means to pay private school tuition or move to an affluent community, you can get your child into an excellent school. But if you are poor and black or brown, you have to settle for "equity" and a lecture--about fairness. About the need to be patient. And about how school choice for you only damages public schools for everyone else. Thousands of parents have chosen Success Academy, and thousands more sit on waiting lists to get in. But Moskowitz herself admits Success Academy "is not for everyone," and this raises uncomfortable questions we'd rather not ask, let alone answer: What if the price of giving a first-rate education to children least likely to receive it means acknowledging that you can't do it for everyone? What if some problems are just too hard for schools alone to solve?
A compendium of more than 240 classroom-tested lessons, this essential resource helps teachers build student understanding and skills and understand how children best learn math. In this third edition, Marilyn Burns has completely revised the first section to reflect what she has learned over the years from her classroom experience with students and her professional development experience with teachers. This section has also been expanded to address these important topics: teaching math vocabulary, incorporating writing into math instruction, linking assessment and instruction, and using children¿s literature to teach key math concepts. In an entirely new section, Marilyn addresses a wide range of questions she has received over the years from elementary and middle school teachers regarding classroom management and instructional issues.
My second life began when I was kidnapped by two complete strangers . . . That the kidnappers are actually Aunt Sandy and Uncle Max makes no difference to thirteen-year-old Domenica Santolina Doone, better known as Dinnie--she just doesn't want to go. Dinnie's accustomed to change, with her family constantly moving for "opportunity"--but when her aunt and uncle whisk her far away to an international school in Switzerland, she's not sure she's ready to face this "opportunity" alone. All at once she finds herself in a foreign country, surrounded by kids from different cultures speaking all sorts of languages and sharing various beliefs. Home and her first life seem so far away. But new friendships and the awesome beauty of Switzerland begin to unlock thoughts and dreams within her. Her joys and struggles make up a rich tapestry of experiences she can find nowhere else. Switzerland begins to be more than a temporary home--it becomes a part of Dinnnie herself, the self she never knew she could be. Switzerland is the picturesque backdrop of Newbery Medal winner Sharon Creech's new novel about a young girl discovering the beauty of nature, her place in the world, the value of friendship--and that life is full of wonderful "bloomabilites."
The United States' failure to educate its students leaves them unprepared to compete and threatens the country's ability to thrive in a global economy and maintain its leadership role. This report notes that while the United States invests more in K-12 public education than many other developed countries, its students are ill prepared to compete with their global peers. According to the results of the 2009 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), an international assessment that measures the performance of 15-year-olds in reading, mathematics, and science every three years, U.S. students rank fourteenth in reading, twenty-fifth in math, and seventeenth in science compared to students in other industrialized countries. The lack of preparedness poses threats on five national security fronts: economic growth and competitiveness, physical safety, intellectual property, U.S. global awareness, and U.S. unity and cohesion, says the report. Too many young people are not employable in an increasingly high-skilled and global economy, and too many are not qualified to join the military because they are physically unfit, have criminal records, or have an inadequate level of education. The report proposes three overarching policy recommendations: implement educational expectations and assessments in subjects vital to protecting national security; make structural changes to provide students with good choices; and, launch a "national security readiness audit" to hold schools and policymakers accountable for results and to raise public awareness.
Delve into the intellectual debates and cultural implications of language in Guy de Maupassant’s The Question of Latin, a narrative that offers a thoughtful and engaging examination of Latin’s role in education and societal values. In The Trip of Le Horla, Guy de Maupassant continues the exploration of the mysterious and supernatural, following the protagonist on a journey that intertwines with the enigmatic entity known as Le Horla. The narrative delves into themes of fear, the unknown, and the impact of supernatural forces on the human psyche. Maupassant’s atmospheric and suspenseful storytelling enhances the eerie and unsettling atmosphere of the tale.
